title: A probabilistic model of nuclear import of proteins.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Nucleo-cytoplasmic trafficking of proteins is a core regulatory process that sustains the integrity of the nuclear space of eukaryotic cells via an interplay between numerous factors. Despite progress on experimentally characterizing a number of nuclear localization signals, their presence alone remains an unreliable indicator of actual translocation.
  
  
  RESULTS
  This article introduces a probabilistic model that explicitly recognizes a variety of nuclear localization signals, and integrates relevant amino acid sequence and interaction data for any candidate nuclear protein. In particular, we develop and incorporate scoring functions based on distinct classes of classical nuclear localization signals. Our empirical results show that the model accurately predicts whether a protein is imported into the nucleus, surpassing the classification accuracy of similar predictors when evaluated on the mouse and yeast proteomes (area under the receiver operator characteristic curve of 0.84 and 0.80, respectively). The model also predicts the sequence position of a nuclear localization signal and whether it interacts with importin-α.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  http://pprowler.itee.uq.edu.au/NucImport
authors.affiliation: Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
authors.forename: Ahmed M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Mehdi
authors.forename: Muhammad Shoaib B
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Sehgal
authors.forename: Bostjan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kobe
authors.forename: Timothy L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Bailey
authors.forename: Mikael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bodén
mesh_terms: D021581:Active Transport, Cell Nucleus; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D002467:Cell Nucleus / Q000378:metabolism*; D051379:Mice; D008954:Models, Biological; D019913:Nuclear Localization Signals / Q000378:metabolism*; D009687:Nuclear Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D025941:Protein Interaction Mapping; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000378:metabolism; D060388:Support Vector Machine; D028901:alpha Karyopherins / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D019913:Nuclear Localization Signals; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D028901:alpha Karyopherins